Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries

Creator

Cusick, William Conklin

Title

William Conklin Cusick Papers

ID

Cage 316

Date [inclusive]

1906-1924

Extent

24.0 items.

General Physical Description note

.5 linear feet of shelf space.

Language

English

Abstract

Drafts of botanical surveys, ca. 1900-1910; field books and catalogs of botanical collections in the Wallowa and Blue Mountains area of Oregon; correspondence with C.V. Piper; and a biographical sketch of Cusick by W.W. Eggleston.

Preferred Citation note

Biographical/Historical note

William C. Cusick was born in Illinois in 1842 and emigrated to Oregon while a youth. He had a modest "collegiate" education and worked as a teacher for a time. Most of his adult life he spent as a rancher in the area of the Wallowa Mountains. He began botanical collecting and distribution sometime in the 1870s, encouraged by Harvard’s Asa Gray. Most of his plants came from the area of the Wallowa and Blue Mountains and were arranged in two successive herbariums, one of which he transferred to the University of Oregon, while the second went to Washington State University.

Encouraged by C. V. Piper, Cusick’s second herbarium project included extensive and exhaustive botanical surveys of the area in the two mountain ranges. Unlike his earlier efforts, this second phase did not include large distributions of plants. Cusick died in 1922.

Scope and Contents note

Cusick’s extant papers consist primarily of his field books, which doubled as the catalog for the second herbarium, and the draft list of the floral surveys he conducted about 1910. A few surviving items of correspondence are included.